'Reluctant Guru' Pens
Best Sellers For Readers
Bored by Business Books

By

Phred Dvorak

Updated Oct. 23, 2006 12:01 a.m. ET

Patrick Lencioni is an unlikely management guru. The author and former Bain & Co. consultant never went to business school and proudly shuns management tomes. He derives inspiration from Pop-Tarts and preaches common-sense truisms like "teams need trust."

As for his business books, they read more like fiction -- because they are. Mr. Lencioni expounds theories of teamwork and leadership through easy-to-read novellas like "Death by Meeting," where a struggling CEO is saved by a temp who bases his advice on movies and TV shows. (The moral: Meetings need drama.) The first chapter, "The Man," is 72 words.

ENLARGE

The combination of homey management truths and simple prose has struck a chord with business readers tired of jargon and complicated strategic models. In eight years, Mr. Lencioni has vaulted from small-time consultant to best-selling author, commanding up to $50,000 for speaking gigs and $60,000 for two-day consulting sessions. His books have won fans among the National Football League, performance-art entertainers Blue Man Group and a squad of soldiers in Afghanistan. They've helped Mr. Lencioni net consulting clients such as Southwest Airlines Co., Cisco Systems Inc. and AT&T Inc. His latest book is "Silos, Politics and Turf Wars."

Mr. Lencioni, an enthusiastic 41-year-old with a toothy grin and intent hazel eyes, marvels at his success -- particularly because he doesn't think his messages are anything new. "I'm kind of a reluctant guru," he muses.

The rise of Mr. Lencioni highlights a growing attention in the U.S. to "softer" management skills. For years, the study of management behavior played second fiddle to quantitative analysis, both in business school and consulting. Now, executives hire coaches to hone their people skills. And business-literature trackers say books on topics like the psychology of leaders outsell tracts on hard-nosed subjects like supply-chain management.

Mr. Lencioni, who specializes in executives' behavior, is wary of the "soft" label; he contends that he gives concrete, practical advice. "I hate touchy-feely things," he says. "I'm not big on catching people falling out of a tree or doing a group grope."

Still, Mr. Lencioni tells clients that their behavior is more important than the overall strategy they choose. He starts consulting sessions by asking executives to relate stories from their childhood, then discusses their personality types. And he criticizes executive teams for not trusting one another.

The resulting sessions are like "couples therapy for an executive team," says Rick Schultz, who participated in consulting sessions with Mr. Lencioni about five years ago while head of marketing for a San Francisco Web-hosting firm. Jeff Lamb, head of personnel and leadership development for Southwest Airlines, says Mr. Lencioni delivers "real-world practicality" free of jargon. Southwest changed the way it organized its meetings after consulting with Mr. Lencioni; another company got rid of an executive who wasn't good at teamwork on Mr. Lencioni's recommendation.

An economics major and amateur screenwriter who says his family and Catholic faith are top priorities, Mr. Lencioni once dreamed of going to Hollywood but was scared off by the prospect of long nights and low wages. Instead, he went to consulting giant Bain, where he loved studying the "human side of business," but grew impatient with Bain's numbers-based analytic style.

Mr. Lencioni, diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder at age 25, says the disease makes him easily distracted but adept at pulling key facts out of a sea of confusing details. Now, that skill helps him hone executives' goals. At Bain, Mr. Lencioni recalls, consultants favored presentations that could be accompanied by spreadsheets. "I'm a guesser," he says. "It drove me crazy at Bain."

ENLARGE

Books by Patrick Lencioni feature homey advice and accessible prose.

Mr. Lencioni left Bain to work in human-resource posts at technology firms Oracle Corp. and Sybase Inc. In 1997, he started his own consulting practice in Lafayette, Calif., where he gave his brainstorms -- and other quirks -- free rein. He came up with a theory of conflict-avoidance while eating a Pop-Tart. He tested his ideas on clients, and he deliberately avoided traditional management literature. "I don't want to cloud my thinking" with other theories, he says.

In 1998, Mr. Lencioni gathered his management musings into a book, "The Five Temptations of a CEO," in which a struggling CEO learns leadership skills from a janitor on the San Francisco commuter train. In a pattern he has since followed, Mr. Lencioni used tips from screenwriting, creating "likable but flawed" characters, building tension and dialogue, and changing scenes quickly. At the end of the book, he laid out his five temptations for why leaders fail (Temptation No. 4: Choosing Harmony over Conflict), along with diagrams, advice for overcoming the temptations and a quiz for readers to see how they measure up. Sales took off.

Since then, Mr. Lencioni has published a book roughly every other year. His most popular, "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team," has sold more than one million copies. It features a CEO who fires a prima donna executive for the good of her team. Mr. Lencioni prefers to write in hotel lobbies, where he observes guests and snags names for characters from the cleaning staff. The resulting books are such easy reads that one reader took "Five Dysfunctions" to the bathroom -- and didn't emerge until he was done, Mr. Lencioni says with glee.

Not all Mr. Lencioni's instincts pan out. Four years ago, he tried -- and failed -- to teach his team principles to partners at a law firm. Mr. Lencioni blames the lack of a leader that could hold everyone accountable. "I think it made things worse," he says.

Working on the kinds of management skills touted by Mr. Lencioni isn't necessarily easy, as Steve Cooper, CEO of staffing firm Labor Ready Inc. found out last month. Mr. Cooper wanted help developing strategy and training executives. Halfway through the two-day session, Mr. Lencioni called Mr. Cooper and his 11-member executive team on the carpet for being too disengaged.

"You get no momentum around your discussions," Mr. Lencioni chided. It's "a little like Congress." Maybe, Mr. Lencioni suggested, the executives didn't trust each other enough. Hesitantly at first, the Labor Ready executives confessed concerns. One said he was bored in meetings with fellow executives because there was little real discussion. Another said he didn't feel part of the top team.

The confessions persuaded Mr. Cooper that he hadn't adequately integrated companies -- and executives -- Labor Ready had recently acquired. Now, he says, the executive team has a new corporate strategy focused on bringing those pieces of the group together.

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.